THE TRANSFER

CHAPTER THREE-TOSIN KNEW BETTER

Tosin knew better. He had been raised to respect boundaries, to fear consequences, and to walk away from temptation dressed as affection. Yet, when Kemi spoke, something in him softened not desire first, but recognition. She saw him. Not his output. Not his reliability.

When she touched his hand that first time, he felt exposed, as though something carefully locked inside him had been opened without force.

“We shouldn’t,” he told her.

He meant it.

But restraint is easier when loneliness is theoretical. When it is lived, it negotiates.

In the hotel room, he was careful with her. Almost reverent. He paid attention not because he wanted to impress her, but because he wanted to understand her. To learn the quiet language of her breathing, the way tension left her shoulders when he held her, the way she clung to him like someone afraid of falling.

Later, when she slept against his chest, he stared into the dark, guilt settling slowly in his bones.

This will end badly, he thought.

And still, he did not leave.

The silence of the room was heavy, thick with the scent of Kemi’s perfume and the hum of the air conditioner, a mechanical pulse that felt like a countdown.

Kemi, on the other side, watched the red standby light of the television on the far wall, a tiny unblinking eye witnessing her betrayal. She thought of her life outside this door, the structured, predictable world she had built with such agonizing care. There was a desk with her name on it, a calendar filled with deadlines, and a man at home who believed her “late nights” were truly what she made him believe. Tosin hadn’t just offered her affection; he had offered her an exit from herself.

And Tosin understood, with a clarity that frightened him, that he wasn’t only crossing a boundary he was becoming someone capable of staying after the line had already been crossed. That frightened him more than the affair itself.